Mysterious sheep appearance in La Conner

Dick Dorsten walked out into his front yard on Saturday morning and made a startling discovery.

A pair of sheep were standing in front of his Morris Street home in La Conner. They apparently made their way inside his garden fence sometime over Christmas with no clue indicating where they’d come from.

On closer inspection, it appears that Santa is an anonymous woodworker who crafted the whimsical sheep in a pose that La Conner residents will recognize as distinctly Dorsten-esque.

The painted wood sheep are wearing hats and holding hands – pretty reminiscent of Dick and Nina Dorsten, married for close to 70 years now, and who are seen almost daily walking through town wearing hats and holding hands.

“Looks just like us,” Dick noted.

Ordinarily, this newspaper tries to limit the amount of space we devote to stories about lawn ornaments. But there’s more to this tale.

The Dorsten’s own flock of three wooden sheep, which delighted passers-by on busy Morris Street for years, was stolen in broad daylight on a sunny Sunday in September.

Dorsten, an avid woodworker, had kept the little flock he made looking new for many years and set them out each spring. They were a familiar sight to everyone in town.

The Skagit County Sheriff’s Office eventually recovered one of the three missing sheep, but the yard display would never be the same.

And now, the Dorstens say they’re surprised and delighted that someone cared enough to create a very personalized yard ornament for them.

“This is such a good little town to live in,” Nina said.